Six In The Morning: Well, I Wrote It In The Morning

1 BRAD WALL WILL ‘SPLAIN IT ALL Saskatchewan’s premier is meeting people from the province’s film industry today to explain why he killed the film tax credit. Prediction one: he’s not going to say “because sometimes my caucus is kind of stupid and petty, and we screwed up, oops” which would be the truth. Prediction two: some form of film industry tax credit will be back in place within 24 months. Could well happen a lot sooner, too. I’m looking forward to seeing if my hunch on this is right. I think Wall’s too good a politician to let this mistake simmer. And it is a political mistake: most Saskatchewanians like the film industry.

2 REGINA IS…GETTING APARTMENTS? Yes we are. Are they centrally located, where we need them if we’re going to have a vibrant downtown? No they are not.

3 ONTARIO LEGALIZES BROTHELS It’s true! But talking about buying and selling sex is still a no-no. Which seems like an insane contradiction.

4 ALBERTA IS OFFICIALLY HAVING AN ELECTION Read all about it. Alternately or additionally, you can read about how the 28th-place Edmonton Oilers are playing too well.

5 IN CASE YOU DIDN’T HEAR THE NEWS The federal NDP picked a new leader this weekend. And today, Thomas Mulcair is on the job. There’s some fallout, though: Jack Layton’s communications director quit.

6 DICK CHENEY GOT A HEART IMPLANT THIS WEEKEND I mean transplant. Ha ha. (And H/T to whoever got that joke off first this weekend.)

“REGINA IS…GETTING APARTMENTS? Yes we are. Are they centrally located, where we need them if we’re going to have a vibrant downtown? No they are not.”

Aren’t several large apartment/condo buildings going up downtown – Vic and Albert, Rose and 13th, Broad and 5th? Plus lower-rent apartments in Harbour Landing and East of Prince of Wales? Probably not perfect or enough to keep up with the low-vacancy, but a step in the right direction nonetheless.

Bronymous – I believe most of those going up downtown are condos, with the exception of the 12 units on Osler. There were another 12 units proposed on Victoria, which the RPC keeps sending back because the density is too high. The problem is the density is more appropriate for a suburban setting, not a major street right next to downtown. As far as I know though the other ones are condos. It can be confusing because the zoning refers to them as apartmetns because it is talking aobut hte type of building not the type of ownership (condo or rental). At least the rentals are being built. Even having them way out there wouldn’t be terrible if Regina had some sort of reasonably efficient transit system. It would also be nice if they had some sort of mixed model that allowed for a portion of the units to be rented at more affordable rates. Although I agree that centrally located is better in many ways, I also think that it would be nice if this city spread out it’s affordable housing a bit better.

Call me a skeptic, but Regina will never have a substantially more effective public transit system. We’re in the middle ground – big enough for it to be a pain riding the bus from the surrounding areas to downtown, too small for a rail or subway. Couldn’t imagine living in Regina without a vehicle.